Yeosu, May 29 – June 2

Our last week of this amazing journey ended on a positive note at Yeosu, beautiful city of sea, flowers and light. We were back at the Amiga Hotel, where we started. We were again greeted warmly like celebrities by the club presidents, service project members and committee chairmen. After checking in at the hotel, we were treated to western style lunch. Yes! After a month-long traditional Korean food, we were ready for some western food. The restaurant that we went to had a magnificent view. The ladies of the Rotary club that hosted us were very kind and hand created the centerpieces that graced our tables from real flowers, including roses. Now that’s what I call hospitality.

Our fist morning in Yeosu began with a tea ceremony nearby the hotel. There we met Liz or Lizza as the Koreans call her. Liz is an American that is now living in Yeosu and teaching English to a group of young children. She loves Yeosu and feels very comfortable among the Koreans and their tradition. Our tours took us to JongHwaDong Marine Park, also called Hamel light house. We visited the Turtle ship, located on DollSan Park. The turtle ship is said to be famous for its helping the Koreans to win sea battles against Japanese ships during the Japanese invasion in the late 1500’s. We saw the exact replica of the ship as it was back then. It was very compact and every nook and cranny was used for something.

The next few days we toured Odongdo Island, where we met with public relations officer and staff for the Expo 2012. We saw a public relations piece advertising the locations and plans for the event. We visited the city hall and met with the Associate Mayor. We visited an Elementary School, and Hyang II Am Buddhist Temple. This temple was no different; as it was located on the top of this magnificent mountain hill, where the view is breathtaking. We were told thousands of people come there the first of the year to see this amazing sunrise. We went on our first University tour. Justin was happy about that. Chonam University as it’s called, has two campuses; one being in Yeosu. We toured a little bit of it and got a chance to see some of the classrooms. It was a very nice campus. I think Justin said it was comparable to Savannah State University in size.

We visited the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), one of four major national South Korean television and radio networks. We toured the facilities and this time all four of us ended up in the “hot seat”, broadcasting our day’s events. We visited Yeosu’s Fire station. It was very impressive. We saw all the fire equipments and the facility was equipped and prepared to take action in case of fire. My most heartfelt visit came at the end when we visited the Social Welfare organization. We first visited the children, who were patients at the disability quarters. We were welcomed by the patients through a beautiful, heart-felt song. We appreciated their efforts in preparing for us the wonderful welcome song. We saw a video of the services that are offered at the organization and got a chance to tour the different facilities.

We were given a reception our last evening in Yeosu by the Rotary Group of Dong Myung Yoo. Mr. Yoo was the group leader of the group that came to Georgia. We met him this week in Yeosu and his rotary group was the last to host us. At the reception, the governor said some kind words and talked very positive about the GSE experience. We expressed our appreciation and told them how wonderful everyone has been and how we would take our experiences and share them with others in our state. We were given the opportunity for the last time to visit a Public Bath House, but we passed and decided to go visit a shopping center instead before we left for the airport. This gave us a chance to see for the last time what great customer service S. Korea has to offer its people. At the airport, we said our goodbyes and adorned our heads with our weave hats, luggage and our Rotary uniformed jerseys and khakis.